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In my faculty workshops I often look for solutions that faculty actually want to use.
Some of the most successful offerings include workshops on writing, on organizing your classes and research, and on saving time. Today’s post covers all of these; in fact, long-form writing will be one of the spring 2018 workshops. Not teaching focused, but that’s how you get faculty interested in professional development!

I finally took the plunge and changed my writing software. Over the years, I’ve added different platforms for different types of writing: google docs for easy collaboration and syncing, so I could write on the go. Evernote and later OneNote for writing fragments and project ideas. A markup editor for blog posts. Those were all additions to MS Word, the default option.

I had looked at earlier versions of Scrivener a long time ago, but playing around with the demo seemed to make writing with it just more complicated. Recently, Scrivener was upgraded to version 3, and a took another look. And I’m glad I did.
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I don’t want to list all the features of Scrivener here. Others have already done that. Instead, i wants to briefly write why the benefits are for me:

Breaking down large writing projects.
This is the main advantage of Scrivener. While you can adjust your settings so you write in one large text, you can also break down the texts into chunks (and sub-chunks…). It makes working on a large documement less intimidating and it is easier to focus on one thing at a time. It is also incredibly easy to switch back and forth and find what you need to find.

Not just a word processor.
Scrivener is more that just a wod processor. It is also a (writing) project manager. You can store all sorts of files, bits of texts, references, etc. right in the binder and link to them in many different ways (that’s a Scrivener term for the interface location where you store, find and access all your items). For example, you can use tags to track ideas, things to do, keywords, etc. Bookmarks are another way to organize your workflow. Overall, there are so many features, it’s easy to find your own workflow. The tools you won’t use don’t get in the way. The software has a lot of output options, so you can compile your masterpiece as a word doc, epub or kindle file, pdf, etc.

Good Synchronisation.
You can synchornize your projects via dropbox. So far it has worked flawlessly. Should be kind of standard in 2017, though…

Useful mobile companion app.
What I like isn’t the mere existence of the app – MS Word also has a mobile app. What I like is that you can actually use it with ease even when working on a large book project. Navigation is easy, there’s no learning curve, and I can focus on small pieces at a time. My mobile work is and should be different than when I’m at my laptop or desktop. If only Zotero had a similar companion app (my other favorite research software, BTW)!

Overall, this is a great long form wirting platform. It’s cross-platform, reasonably priced, and a pleasure to use. It’s defintely overkill for a short paper, but if you are working on book or a longer text, go and download the free 30-day trial

Note: I have not received anything for this review. This is true for all my reviews. I have absolutely no ties contact to the company.